I had the great pleasure to play and demonstrate the Lumiere and the Carbon Fibre models at ClarinetFest in Oostende.

I am a MoBa player and I can honestly say the Lumiere is an amazing clarinet. The tone is pure and focused across the entire range. The intonation is flawless as we come to expect from Backun instruments. They have leather pads and this instrument is designed for the European market. It sits alongside the top end Buffet instruments and frankly is better than the Divine or Legend. For me personally this instrument in cocobolo would be perfect for chamber music. One can create a wonderfully intimate sound for this purpose. I still love my MoBas and wouldn’t part with them but would happily have an affair with the Lumiere’s (the MoBas would understand).

The Carbon Fibre Clarinet is also a work of art. The technology that has gone into making this is very special. The instrument has a wooden bore and tones holes which as had carbon fibre infused onto the body. What this creates is an instrument that once warmed up will not change. The intonation is the best I’ve ever played because once warmed up the body will not expand and contract because the carbon fibre is strong. This means that the pitch will not move as you might expect on a fully wooden instrument. The sound and tone of the carbon fibre MoBa is huge! At strong dynamics it can cut through without compromising the tone qualities. It also has the ability to play the most delicate pianissimo.

These are just my impressions demonstrating these to players and potential customers at ClarinetFest having never played them before then. If you can I urge you to try for yourself and make up your own mind.

It seems that Mr. David Shifrin is now playing this clarinet (according to the review on the Backun Musical website).

Directly quoting a section from his review from the Backun Musical website, Mr. Shifrin says: "While the perfect instrument does not exist, I feel that Backun has come the closest with the new Lumiere Clarinet. I find that I can produce the most consistently rich and warm sound quality of sound throughout the registers while not having to sacrifice dynamic contrasts and accuracy of pitch."

I am very curious about any other opinions on this new clarinet. Anyone else here have any first-hand experience?

cigleris wrote:
> Johan, I can assure you it doesn’t tune like a Divine.
> Consistent intonation from top to bottom with none of the
> tuning idiosyncrasies you get with Buffet.

You can assure as much as you want but compared to a MoBa it tunes differently, with more of Buffet tuning. The four instrument I tested were all consistent and gave the same result. The idea with extending a product line is to provide something different, so there's nothing wrong.

If the latest Backun clarinet had tuning similar to any buffet, that would be very disappointing. Can’t imagine Morrie taking such a big step backwards in design for any reason. Though I don’t currently play Backun as my main clarinet, everything I’ve tried has been great when it comes to intonation. I would think good intonation would be a must for the new Lumiere.

I had a chance to try one in cocobolo for a few days on loan from David Kessler.
I felt it had the richest, most vibrant tone of any clarinet I have ever played. An absolutely gorgeous instrument! My only problem with it is that it is quite heavy due to the elaborate and massive mechanism. If there were some way of getting the same quality sound from an instrument not so heavy I would buy in an instant. But, I suspect the added mass is necessary to give it the vibrant tone!